The Finance Club of MISB Bocconi, organized ‘Finance Conclave 2017’ in Mumbai. The topic of discussion was ‘The Blockchain Revolution and its impact on Asset Management’. Through the conclave, the club addressed the emergence of the Blockchain technology and the ways in which it could affect us in the future. Esteemed professionals from the field of Financial Services who have hands-on experience with Blockchain were at the conclave as panelists.

Mr. Harsh Pathak, a PGPB candidate at MISB Bocconi (class of 2018) and the President of the Finance Club of the college was the dialogue moderator. The conversation opened with discussing the value of Bitcoin in comparison with Gold. The former is currently three times the value of the latter. With the increased threat of hacking, the panelists discussed what actions should be taken to make Blockchain more secure. Mr. Satyen Jadeja, who is currently leading the digital and cognitive solutions for financial services at IBM India pointed out that Blockchain is getting safer by the day. This was mainly due to sophisticated tools like cryptography. He stated, “What the internet is to information, Blockchain is to value.”Mr. Harveer Singh, Head of Product Marketing at Empays Payment Systems Ltd., said that Bitcoin is a representative implementation of Blockchain, though by far the most popular. He also discussed the intricacies of this system by touching upon RBI’s view of the virtual currency and the fact that they do not regulate Bitcoins. Despite this, the RBI does advise enthusiasts to exercise caution and not participate in any unlawful activities.

On the topic of the emergence of Blockchain technology, Mr. Akash Gaurav, CEO of Auxesis Group elaborated “A lot of wrongful investments may have happened in the past but the buzz has actually fastened in improving the Blockchain ecosystem as a whole. Two years ago, people were not as aware of the Blockchain technology. On the contrary, today Blockchain is merging with other technological platforms to make itself more practical and efficient to use.” The need of the hour is to find the right parameters of security and the appropriate governance for the same. Auxesis is among the pioneers of top 100 Most Influential Blockchain Organisations.

This discussion continued with another question, ‘Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) a threat?’ Mr. Gaurav then explained, “Cryptography is hard to crack, so, no, AI is not exactly a threat to Blockchain. If Quantum Technology or something of that sort comes in, then there maybe something to worry about.”

To summarize, the panelists provided the attendees with an in-depth analysis of the implications of the Blockchain technology and techniques that could prove to be of paramount importance in the coming few years with the exponential rise of technology.